Support Me, Cancer Research, and Your Photo Habit

I know I ask a lot of you. Please send me your breads for YeastSpotting. Please weigh your ingredients. Please love baking as much as I do.

Now I have a particularly cheeky thing to ask: Please give me your money. Before you scroll on down to the next post in your feed reader, hear me out!(Psst! camera, camera…)

On October 18, 2009 I will walk 26.2 miles in the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco. I have never done anything like this before.

I know why I’m doing it: to push myself; to step outside my box; to challenge my heart, my lungs, my feet, my will; to keep all the bread I eat from getting the better of my health; to raise money for a great cause.

But frankly, I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to do it. I am not what you would call an endurance walker — yet. This is where Team in Training comes in. They have assured me that if I do my part, they will train me to go the distance. They will teach me, coach me, support me — so I will be able to walk the 26 miles.

But I do have to do my part: I have to show up at twice-weekly training sessions and walk increasingly long distances with my coaches and other team members. On most other days, I have to walk and do core strength or weight training on my own. And I have to raise at least $2500.

Say what? $2500? If you haven’t heard of it, Team in Training is an organization that benefits the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society by training people like me who are not athletes to participate in endurance events in return for us raising fairly large chunks of change. The money we raise goes to LLS to fund research towards finding a cure for blood cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma.

If supporting cancer research is not reason enough, consider some other reasons to help me out here:

You love me. (I can dream, can’t I?)

You like me.

You can’t stand me and relish the thought of all those blisters on my feet.

You want a chance at winning this camera.

UPDATE 8/17/09: I have reached my $2500 goal and the camera raffle is closed. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated so far. You are still welcome to donate, of course, and will win my undying appreciation, if not the camera!

This camera is guaranteed to make your bread shots look like the winners at the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie (the Olympics of bread-baking). You may have noticed that my own photos don’t look like Coupe du Monde winners, and there’s a reason for that: my own camera is not as nice as the A700.

(And in case, like me, you’re not all that savvy about all those camera settings, fear not: Auto mode has your back. Use it like a point-and-shoot (but get much better photos) until you’re up to speed on the rest of it.)

Every dollar you donate gets you one virtual raffle ticket. There is no minimum donation, but the more you donate, the better chance you’ll have of winning. I will keep the raffle open until I have raised $2500. Donate early so you don’t miss your chance!

Make a credit card donation in any amount, and please be as generous as you can!

Make sure your donation is not anonymous, and that you enter your email address correctly.

I will email you your ticket numbers. The winner will be chosen by random drawing at Random.Org once I reach $2500 in donations.

UPDATE 8/17/09: I have reached my $2500 goal and the camera raffle is closed. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated so far. You are still welcome to donate, of course, and will win my undying appreciation, if not the camera!

Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support!

Now I’m going to stretch and hit the trail.

P.S. If for some reason you do not want to participate in the raffle, your donation will still be gratefully accepted; just tell me in the comment space on the donation form that you want to opt out.

Also, if you cannot make a donation, you can still help by telling your friends (Twitter and Facebook come to mind), considering joining Team in Training yourself, or leaving a comment or dropping me a line with a few words of encouragement!

Good for you, Susan. Enjoy the training and good luck on the marathon.

I lost my best friend, Rachel Raviv Hoffer, to cancer nearly two years ago. She was diagnosed with cancer of unknown primary just a few weeks after giving birth to a wonderful little girl and lived almost exactly a year after that.

Thanks so much for raising money and giving your time to such a wonderful cause.

Congratulations on your decision! My wife and I walked the marathon in Hawaii for Team Diabetes here in Canada. Like you, we started out complete, utter newbies, and let me tell ya, we were terrified. But by race day we were trained up and ready to go. And let me tell ya, the feeling when you cross that finish line is truly incredible!

So don’t worry. By go time, you *will* be ready. And while it’s hard work, it is *so* worth it (8.5 hours after the starting pistol went off, as we crossed the finish line happy and exhausted, our feet feeling like they were going to fall off, my wife and I both agreed that we’d love to do it all again… it’s a heck of a lot of work, and pain, and sweat, and exhaustion, but it really is a wonderful experience).

Thank you, thank you, thank you. My dad lost his battle with leukemia 10 years ago and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society was a wonderfully generous organization for our family during that time. I have contemplated doing a TNT event but never have. You have inspired me to finally get off my butt and find an event to participate in during the coming year! I will most definitely be donating as much as I can afford.

Thank you again, The Leukemia Society is a wonderful organization. Best of luck as you train!

I just found your website and love it. I wanted to comment on this post though because I am currently trying to get in shape for a 5k…not a MARATHON! I think it is a wonderful goal anyone to have and to tie it to a worthy cause is even better. Best of luck to you in your training, I’m off to view more of your blog.

I admire your effort, Susan. Given that I attended a funeral just this week for a close friend who passed away from bowel cancer, my aunt is in remission from breast cancer, my grandmother passed away from bowel cancer… a couple more family members I won’t mention, I have donated. It’s not about the camera, it’s about the cause.

What you’re doing is wonderful, and I wish you the best of luck. I donated what I could (I’m sorry it couldn’t be more) and I noticed you’re 73% toward your goal! Congrats!

I lost my mother to cancer on May 11, at the age of 45. It wasn’t blood cancer, but if they can cure one, perhaps it will unlock the secret to curing them all. I was looking for a good memorial to my mother; thank you for helping me find it.